{ITEM-100%-1-2}The teams with a 1—1 record will face each other to determine their places in the next round. Mid match FaZe Clan Mirage. The Challengers stage, also known as the Preliminary stage and formerly known best live online casino uk the offline qualifier, will be a sixteen team swiss tournament: The rankings shown below reflect the January 29, rankings, the first ranking after the major. Two teams of each group qualify for the bracket phase, which is a four team, double elimination, best of three bracket. Dosia, AdreN, fitch, HObbit, mou. Frauenfussball wm finale finally got a win on the board, but deutsche bank aktiendepot had to be an overtime win against HellRaiser. Low match Renegades Cobblestone. January 26, - North Fnatic January 23, - The remaining five spots went bvb gehaltsliste 2019 the top five teams in the North American open qualifier. In the group stage, each team bans two maps. Fnatic brought one back and was in a 2 vs 1 situation when Kjaerbye won the clutch, giving Astralis the victory. Team Liquid Overpass. Misfits Gaming Overpass.{/ITEM}

The top eight teams from this stage move on to the next phase of the major. The group stage, now known as the "New Legends stage" will feature the sixteen teams that are normally a part of the main stage.

Like the Challengers stage, the Legends stage is a sixteen team, Swiss-system format. The top eight teams from this phase move on to the top eight.

In the playoffs, now known as the "Champions stage," eight teams will play in a single elimination, best of three bracket. Teams will play until a winner is decided in the finals.

The map pool will be kept the same as the previous major, even though Valve released the new version of Dust II. Each regional qualifier, called "Minors", featured eight teams, whether through direct invitation or through qualifiers.

Each minor featured two groups of four teams; these groups were in GSL double elimination formats, which was the format used at every major until the ELEAGUE Major, with the initial matches and winners match being best of ones and the losers and decider series being best of three.

Two teams of each group qualify for the bracket phase, which is a four team, double elimination, best of three bracket. Two teams qualify for the major qualifier from each minor.

The Asia Minor took place shortly after the major announcement. Eight teams were invited to the qualifier in Seoul , South Korea and no online, open, or closed qualifier took place.

This caused some controversy as minors were intended for all teams to be able to qualify and had no chance to prove themselves; top Asian teams such as Recca eSports, Grayhound Gaming, and Risky Gaming had more success than the likes of The MongolZ and other teams in the minor but were not invited.

The Asia Minor took place on October 26, to October 29, In addition, many players could not obtain visas in time between the time Valve announced the major and the qualifier dates, causing some teams to drop out of the qualifiers.

ViCi Gaming was invited to the minor, but visa issues forced the team to pull out. T-dream[S]cape from Singapore was named the replacement.

The eight teams were split into two groups. In the decider series, Kings took the first map as expected , but two close maps at and in favor of MVP PK, including a massive comeback on the third map after being down , put the Koreans through to the bracket phase.

Kings was sent home. In the losers series, Tainted Minds took the first map then took a close second map to eliminate B. In the losers series, Flash easily took the first game from Tainted Minds ; the second map was closer, but Flash came out on top again to take the last spot in the top four.

Renegades just about took a victory over Flash in two wins. In winners finals, the first game was an extremely tense one, but TyLoo prevailed in double overtime to take the game TyLoo cruised its way past Flash in the first map , but Flash came back with a victory on the second map; on the third map, TyLoo was able to mount a huge comeback from to take the game to avoid the upset and guarantee a spot once again in Atlanta.

In the Asia Minor finals, Renegades had to come back twice against TyLoo to take the first map and then on the second map to officially take the first seed.

It had a team open qualifier, in which six teams make it to the minor. Two teams were invited, Team Spirit and Tengri.

Originally, Klan FONTAN and Fantazeri qualified for the minor as both teams placed fifth in the open qualifier, but visa issues for a player for each team did not allow the team to travel to Romania.

The other team that placed seventh in the open qualifier, WEPLAY, could not obtain visas in such a short amount of time, so the last spot was settled in a last chance qualifier, which was won by forZe.

Nemiga Gaming proved to closer, but it was pro to pull off a win. In the losers series, NOTBAD took a surprising first match against Nemiga, but Nemiga bounced back to take the second map and then survived a scare at to stay alive.

Team Spirit then swept the best of three in the decider series, and , to move on as the second seed of group A. Quantum scarped past Tengri in the closest three game set out of any of the Boston minors; after Tengri took the first map , Quantum took the second game in overtime and then the third game Quantum proceeded to take out forZe, and then , to take the last spot in the CIS minor playoffs.

In two close games, Quantum Bellator Fire swept the pro squad and to move on to winners finals. Team Spirit crushed pro and , which included a start to the series for Spirit.

Quantum Bellator took down Team Spirit in losers finals — , , — to take guarantee the team a spot in the major qualifier as Spirit, which was the favorite to go to Atlanta, was knocked out.

The Europe Minor took place on November 2, and ended on November 5, Another eight teams qualified through an open qualifier, which was a team bracket.

There, the sixteen teams played in a Swiss group stage, with all matches played online. The final eight teams went on to go to Bucharest to determine which two teams would move on to the New Challenger stage.

Many of these cheaters were banned mid-match, causing many forced forfeits in the team bracket. Group A started with Team EnVyUs as a clear favorite to make it out of the minor, but the experienced French team barely scraped past Windigo Gaming in overtime.

This would be the first time Dennis "dennis" Edman would not qualify for the major as an active player.

In the winners series, OpTic took a close victory over the Turks of Space Soldiers to move on to the top four. Pride defeated eXatus on the first map and then took a close win in game two to eliminate eXatus.

In the deciders series, Pride took a surprise first map off of Space Soldiers at , but Space Soldiers easily took the next two maps at and to move on to the playoffs and eliminating Pride.

EnVyUs started the third day of the minor well with a victory over Space Soldiers. However, the Turks readjusted and went on to win the next to maps by scores of and OpTic easily took out AGO with two victories.

On the third map on Mirage, Space Soldiers blew an lead and the game went into double overtime. There, Space Soldiers were able to win and was surprisingly the first team to move on to the major qualifier in Europe.

In the third map, EnVyUs came back from a huge disadvantage to come out on top to move on. In losers finals, EnVyUs defeated OpTic in two close maps, and , as the French eliminated the favorite to win the minor and guarantee themselves a spot at the offline qualifier.

In the grand finals, Space Soldiers had an easy time against EnVyUs — and — to take the top spot. Two teams were automatically invited to the minor: Team Liquid and Counter Logic Gaming.

One team from the South American open also qualified for the tournament. The remaining five spots went to the top five teams in the North American open qualifier.

Liquid continued to cruise as it took down NRG In the losers series, Team One came close to defeating its first international opponent, but compLexity came through to win and In the deciders series, NRG took a close first game at , but compLexity came back to win the next two maps at and to move on to the playoffs.

Misfits took the first game against Rise in the loser series and stifled a comeback attempt at to stay alive.

In the deciders series, Misfits took a close win in game one and LG dominated the second map at After LG started to come back in game three, Misfits pulled through for a win to put the team through.

Misfits had an easy time defeating Team Liquid on the first map Liquid was able stop a Misfits comeback on the second map to go on to a win.

On the third map, Misfits was able to pull off the upset win at to go on to the winners finals. CLG was able to take the first map with relative ease and then had a close game in the next map The winners match proved to be a thriller.

On the first map, Misfits barely took it over the edge with a win. In game two, a Ricky "Rickeh" Mulholland 1 vs.

In the final map, Misfits came back from a deficit and ended up winning to guarantee a spot in the qualifier after not even qualifying for the minor.

Liquid had an easy time against compLexity — and — to eliminate the organization that reached the semifinals at the very first CS: The losers finals had the two favorites to make it out of the minor alive fight to stave off elimination.

Liquid dominated CLG on the first map and then closed it out on the second map to have the Cologne runners-up through to the major qualifiers.

In the grand finals, Misfits was able to pull off another upset by winning on the first map, but Liquid bounced back to dominate the next two maps at and to take home the first seed at the minor.

The broadcast talent of the Boston major was announced on the same day as the preliminary group stage. The major was streamed in various languages across twitch.

Several problems arose from the Major. The most common complaint was that the announcement of the Major was announced so late that several players were not able to obtain visas to their Minors or the Major itself.

In addition, Valve did not allow coaches Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu of TyLoo and Wilton "zews" Prado of Team Liquid to have their own stickers despite peacemaker standing in for Hansel "BnTeT" Ferdinand, who had visa issues, and zews standing in for Lucas "steel" Lopes, who had to sit out due to rules regarding roster locks.

In addition, peacemaker left TyLoo beforehand to become the coach of the Danish organization Heroic. Another big complication in the Major were the aforementioned the rules on roster locks.

Valve said that the tournament organizers, not Valve, were responsible for the rules on roster locks, and ELEAGUE rules stated that players that competed in any Minor or the Americas Minor closed qualifier cannot compete on a team that would participate in the Major.

The roster locks themselves were not the issue; the main issue was why the roster locks were placed months in advance of the major. Most of the community and players were dissatisfied with the situation.

Journalist Richard Lewis, who worked as the host for ELEAGUE at the time, said in one of his podcasts with Duncan "Thorin" Shields that roster locks are necessary in order for teams to not make changes before the Major to benefit them for the tournament.

In the New Champions stage, the continuing argument of why the fourth quarterfinal series was played on the same day as the two semifinals was asked, as the first team in the second semifinals was much more rested than the second team in the semifinals, who only had a few hours of rest.

Out of the seven Majors in which the fourth quarterfinal match was played in the same day as the semifinals, the winner of that quarterfinal lost five times in the semifinals.

The rankings shown below reflect the January 8, rankings. The HLTV world ranking ranks the best teams in the competitive field of the game.

All of that is predicated around a 3-man core each team is required to have in order to retain their past points. Points cap at points. The following list shows the relevant tournaments to the rankings.

From top to bottom, the tournament becomes more relevant to the rankings. Those in gold indicates the tournament was a Major, meaning Valve, the developers of the game, sponsored the tournament to host a CS: A premier tournament means it offers an outstanding prize pool, is frequently played offline, and features the best players from all over the world.

A major tournament simply means the tournament features a large prize pool and a good number of top teams; the major tournaments that are shown below are only shown because a team from the major participated in the event.

The top 20 players of were ranked by HLTV. Below is the list of players in the top Most achievements have whether the player was the most valuable player of the tournament MVP or an extremely valuable player in the tournament EVP.

The Challengers stage, also known as the Preliminary stage and formerly known as the offline qualifier, will be a sixteen team swiss tournament: Every round will consist of one game.

In addition, teams will not play the same team twice unless necessary and teams will be randomly chosen. Any team with three wins would qualify for the major, and any team with three losses would be eliminated.

In the first round, teams from pool one will be matched up against teams in pool four. Teams in pool two will play teams in pool three. One team from a pool is randomly decided to face off against a randomly decided team in another pool.

In the second round, the winners in the first round will face each other in the "high" matches, in which teams with a record will play against each other; the losers will face each other in the "low" matches, in which teams with a record will play each other.

In the third round, the winners of the high matches teams with records from round two will face each other. The winners of these two matches will qualify for the major.

The losers of the high round and the winners of the low round teams with records will face each other in the "mid" matches.

The losers of these low matches are eliminated. Twelve teams remain in the Challengers stage. The winners of those high matches qualify for the major.

The losers of the mid matches and the winners of the low matches teams with records will face each other in the low matches of round four.

The losers of these matches are eliminated from the major. In the last round, the remaining teams will face off teams with records. The winners of these matches will qualify for the Legends stage and the losing teams will be eliminated from the major.

In the most ideal of situations, the Swiss format should allow teams to have a harder time each time they win and have an easier time each time they lose.

The first round matchups were announced on January 9, FaZe Clan came into the tournament as the favorite to win the major while Team Liquid was crippled as it did not have its complete roster.

In a match in which the winner was a toss-up, Misfits Gaming dominated its map against FlipSid3 Tactics. Jan "wayLander" Rahkonen was the only player for FlipSid3 to do well as everyone else had 10 kills or fewer.

After a strong first half, the Turks of Space Soldiers failed to deliver in the second half. Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev turned up in the second half to end the game with 29 kills and Egor "flamie" Vasilyev had Flash Gaming surprised G2 Esports early with a lead, but G2 only allowed two rounds afterwards as the French avoided the upset thanks to Richard "shox" Papillon performing well for the first time in a while and Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt supporting with 21 with Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro getting some impact kills late into the game.

YuanZhang "AttackeR" Sheng and Andrew "kaze" Khong did well in separate halves, but the two could not get the team going late in the game.

Team EnVyUs ended the first day of the major. Day 2 began with FlipSid3 continuing to struggle, despite taking a slim halftime lead. Renegades came into the major as the hottest team in the challengers stage while Rpk was in the best form of his Global Offensive career with ScreaM also returning to good form.

However, a massive misplay from the French side game Renegades the momentum to close the game out. Timo "Spiidi" Richter was the only player for Sprout to get his kill stat to double digits while flamie and Denis "electronic" Sharipov let s1mple rest for a bit.

All of Cloud9 performed well. Although buster had a lackluster game, the other four players, including Dmitry "dimasick" Matvienko and Ali "Jame" Djami, stepped up in the second half; Hunter "SicK" Mims fell behind as he ended the game with just 12 kills.

Vega Squadron was part of another close match and came out on top over a handicapped Liquid. The rematch of the CIS Minor finals. After the conclusion of the first day, ELEAGUE and Thieves, the runners-up of the last major, announced that the Brazilian roster would not attend due to immigration issues.

The two teams with the easiest schedule from the three would face off in a best of one and then the winner of that match would go on to face off against the team that had the hardest schedule.

In the event in which the strength of schedule is the same, the tie breaker would be the head-to-head game. If the teams never played, then a random draw would take place.

Jame went stale against the Americans, but buster and qikert were able to step up to shoot down Liquid. However, Liquid made it close late into the game as the Americans were able to punish the aggression of the Kazakhs on their Terrorist side and Liquid defeated the underdogs in overtime.

The Legends stage, formerly known as the Group stage, used the same format as the Challengers stage. This took place from January 19 to January The struggling North went up against the red hot Vega Squadron to start the New Legends stage; however, North was still expected to take the map on paper.

QBF came out swinging and shut down VP to pull off an upset. Jesper "JW" Wecksel showed his old form as he did back in and early , but the superteam of FaZe stomped the former best team in the world as olofmeister had 25 kills against his old team.

The 3rd best team in the world of Astralis went up against a rising mousesports. G2 took a lead on one of its favorite maps and then closed out the game despite Cloud9 showing up at certain times.

Despite tarik having 26 kills, NBK- did better as G2 went up QBF continued its Cinderella run after defeating the defending champions of Gambit.

After suffering an upset in the Challenger stage, FaZe Clan was able to flip the roles and blew Vega Squadron out of the water.

However, gla1ve did the same to MSL in the second half and everyone on Astralis started hitting his shots as Astralis completed a massive comeback.

Vega Squadron appeared to have stifled in performance at the major as it lost by 13 rounds for a second time as oskar and chrisJ of mousesports gave the Russians no mercy.

FalleN appeared at another tournament, this time in the group stage. VP was known as the North American killers as the Poles seemingly never lose to those teams; however, the VP free fall continued as Cloud9 had zero problem with the former Legends.

Cloud9 match proved to mark a spot in history, as Xyp9x, dupreeh, and dev1ce lost their status of being three of just five players to make the playoffs at every major, leaving just olofmeister and KRiMZ as the two remaining players to hold the streak.

In the next elimination match, Team Liquid nearly surmounted a comeback against Vega Squadron, but the Russians held their ground and were able to eliminated the Americans.

Gambit, despite being the defending champion, had struggles against SK Gaming as the team only one one map against the Brazilians and made a questionable map choice by striking to Overpass, the map in which SK was the best in the world at.

KRiMZ wanted to join his former teammate olofmeister as he and Lekr0 turned things around from their last match and dominated the defending champions.

Gambit was just the second team in major history to exit the group stage in the major after winning the previous major, as Team EnVyUs its core now with G2 Esports went out in last place at MLG Columbus after winning DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca and now the Fnatic organization joined KRiMZ as being the only organization to be in the playoffs at every major.

AdreN had little impact as he could not hit his shots accurately in the loss. Skadoodle ended his curse of not making the playoffs and Cloud9 had a North American team returned to Legend Status after more than a year.

This major appeared to be end many losing streaks for players, as chrisJ of mousesports ended a seven major streak without being in the playoffs; Skadoodle had an eight major streak, shox was at six, and NiKo was at five.

The New Champions Stage is a best of three single elimination bracket. Teams play into overtime until a winner is decided.

This stage is taking place at the Agganis Arena between January 26 and January The rematch in the Boston quarterfinals took place on January NiKo met up with his former teammate chrisJ, and both had their long streaks of missing out on a major top eight broken at this tournament.

Despite being the underdogs, mousesports had a record against the European superteam. FaZe had to scrape by SK Gaming to take a top spot in the quarterfinals, while mousesports survived a scare against Space Soldiers after chocking away an eleven-round lead to Quantum Bellator Fire.

These two teams met at a major once before. Game one started with a thriller on the rarely-played Nuke. FaZe took a lead, but mousesports later lead.

In the second half, FaZe showed that it could also perform on the Terrorist side. After take the pistol round and the following two anti-economy rounds, mousesports took one back.

In the 20th round, FaZe ran all over mousesports. However, suNny accidentally jumped to his death, suddenly giving FaZe a small chance to win the round and stay alive in the map.

GuardiaN took out oskar before olofmeister planted the bomb. The last round of regulation had some more FaZe magic to show off. STYKO then took down karrigan.

However, NiKo instead stepped into the flames and took down both mousesports players before any defuse could happen to secure overtime.

Overtime was not as cinematic, as FaZe took finished the game with relative ease. In the 15th round, FaZe proved to be relentless.

NiKo killed suNny early on near the A bombsite. In the 20th round, after mousesports won the first three rounds of the half and FaZe winning the first gun round, ropz fell to rain in the early stages of the round.

However, NiKo did enough as karrigan cleaned up suNny to win a twelfth round. In the 24th round, mousesports lost the 23rd round and went for a bizarre buy with a shotgun — which only is useful close range — a submachine gun, two upgrade pistols, and one weak, unideal pistol.

However, rain was able to shut four of them down and FaZe got match and series point. The favorites then easily won the last round to move on to the semifinals.

NiKo had 24 kills and olofmeister and GuardiaN had 19 each. Many doubted QBF because it faced weak opponents in the New Challengers stage, but wins over Gambit and mousesports secured their spot in the finals.

Kvik of QBF not only became the first Lithuanian to play at a major, but also was the first Lithuanian to be in the top eight of a major.

In the 19th round, QBF had a great chance to extend the game. With limited information, flamie and s1mple had to use their firepower just in an attempt to get the bomb down.

Boombl4 was able to kill Zeus to leave flamie alone against five. In the first gun round of the second half, Edward started with a kill onto Boombl4 with the help of a plethora of grenades.

However, flamie died to the bullet of waterfaLLZ to even the playing field. Edward had a vintage performance with 23 kills and flamie had 22 kills.

G2 Esports took a new approach to the game as shox allowed his team to have more freedom in the game rather than managing his players, allowing himself to perform at the level he was capable of.

Cloud9 was the clear underdog, but playing in front of the home crowd would help the Americans. Historically, Cloud9 has the edge over G2 with an head-to-head record, but G2 cruised past Cloud9 in the New Legends stage.

G2 did have a perfect record coming into the playoffs, but many of those were against teams that were not in contention for a playoffs spot. Meanwhile, Cloud9 had to fight from a record to pull itself back up to three wins to clinch a playoff spot.

The match started with G2 winning the pistol round, but heroics from autimatic allowed Cloud9 to win its economy round. Skadoodle then took down shox; NBK- was able to take down tarik and tried to get away as the bomb was too late to defuse, but Skadoodle was able to chase him down to give Cloud9 the round.

Cloud9 went up before G2 took the last five rounds as the French started to get aggressive and started to get rounds on the board.

Cloud9 was up in the 21st round as G2 had another gun round. Skadoodle started with a kill onto NBK-. Stewie2K later took down shox before being traded by bodyy.

Skadoodle found apEX, but kennyS traded to give G2 the round. RUSH quietly lead the way with 26 kills. Overpass was a strong G2 map and the series was expected to go to a third map.

Cloud9 was up when bodyy started off with a kill onto Skadoodle. Stewie2K traded out apEX in return, but bodyy was able to take down Stewie2K before falling to tarik.

On the retake, autimatic started strong with kills onto NBK- and shox. RUSH created enough of a distraction to allow autimatic defusing the bomb despite dying to kennyS.

G2 won the 12th round, but its economy was reset after Cloud9 won the next. In the 15th round, Skadoodle started strong onto bodyy before being traded by shox.

G2 found some life by getting three, but Cloud9 got a 13th round with two entry kills from Stewie2K. In the 23rd round, Skadoodle opened up with a kill onto shox but was traded immediately by kennyS.

NBK- took down autimatic in the B bombsite but was traded by tarik. Stewie2K caught a flanking apEX. The two most decorated CS: GO teams faced off in the quarterfinals.

Historically, Fnatic has the head-to-head lead at , but Fnatic had suffered a downfall from the best team in the world since mid, which was when SK Gaming just started its rise to become the best team in the world.

However, Fnatic has two relatively inexperienced players and SK is playing without its regular lineup. These teams met twice at previous majors.

The young rookie in-game leader Golden had to go against whom many are calling the best in-game leader in Global Offensive, FalleN.

This game started similar to all the other New Champions stage games as Fnatic took the pistol and SK Gaming took the following round.

However, Fnatic had a force buy of its own in the next round. Fnatic was able to overrun SK and took ten rounds. In the second half, SK won the pistol, but Fnatic won a second round force buy and went up to 14 rounds.

In the 24th round, Lekr0 killed felps and coldzera and looked like he did enough. With time dwindling, SK needed to plant the bomb and fer started to plant with about ten second left.

Fnatic got to match point, but the comeback kings of SK attempted to do so once again. FalleN planted the bomb and then the two SK members took down Golden and flusha to secure the round.

SK tied the game at 15 to send the game to overtime to have a chance to complete the comeback. In the second round of overtime, SK completely tricked Fnatic by faking towards the A bombsite and going B, but the Brazilians were in a 2 vs.

The game went to double overtime, where FalleN nearly gave SK the lead twice, but heroics from Golden in the last round allowed Fnatic to pull out map one for a much-deserved win.

Three players for Fnatic had more than 30 kills as flusha lead the way with 38 kills; three players on SK also had more than 30 kills, with TACO leading the way with 32 kills.

The next map went to Overpass, a map SK is heavily favored on. The rounds went back and forth early on. In round six, with the game tied up and Fnatic had just won the previous round after the two teams kept trading one for one, it looked to be the end of trading as JW took down coldzera and Lekro downed TACO.

Lekr0 also took down felps after fer killed Golden. FalleN continued to perform as he tagged down Lekro with his SSG, the inferior sniper rifle, and then hit a ridiculous shot onto flusha while trying to move the bomb to the A bombsite.

SK was the first team to string two rounds together by winning the next round to go up SK went up , but Fnatic was barely able to steal away rounds to take the lead.

SK retook the lead and ended the half at The pistol round went to Fnatic, but SK had a force buy and the less favored team won the second round once again.

SK went up before Fnatic picked one up. With the score tied , SK pulled out a miracle from an economy round and stole a round away.

In the 30th round, SK was up , but had a weaker buy. Based on the first two maps, the game went back and forth in the start as expected.

In the 13th round, the score was Golden tried to plant the bomb, but felps killing flusha forced Golden off the plant. Lekr0 traded and Golden tried to plant again.

This time, a low FalleN tried to take down Golden, but Lekr0 used his body to partially block the shot, allowing Golden to plant the bomb.

Golden took advantage of the low health of FalleN and killed him to secure the round. The teams traded the last two rounds and Fnatic took an lead into the halftime break.

Fnatic had an lead going into the 21st round. There, coldzera caught out a flank from KRiMZ, but three consecutive kills from Fnatic before the bomb was planted from SK allowed an easy retake as the Swedes swept up the felps and fer.

However, the Brazilians tied the game again at The turning point came the round after in which SK pulled off a risky and massive play.

FalleN threw a standard top mid smoke, which blocks off the sight of the counter-terrorist looking threw the window area, which is at the end of the middle area and has a sightline to the top middle area.

At the same time, coldzera threw a smoke intended to block off the window area, but the smoke missed. Meanwhile, the other three SK players were nearby the B bombsite and once the smoke grenades bloomed, FalleN and coldzera joined their teammates and then executed a quick B bombsite rush that overwhelmed Lekr0 and flusha and the living Fnatic players had to save their guns for the next round.

After the match, analyst Sean "seang res" Gares theorized that coldzera missed the window smoke on purpose to keep the player in the window area, JW, so that JW could not support his teammate on the B bombsite.

In addition, JW had communicated to flusha that the window smoke was missed, so flusha went near the middle area as well to also potentially kill a player, leaving Lekr0 all alone in the B bombsite.

In round 28, fer took down flusha and felps followed up onto KRiMZ. SK Gaming moved on to face Cloud9 in the semifinals as the Brazilians took down a vintage performance of Fnatic in a series worthy of a grand finals.

Natus Vincere looked ready to make a great run to the finals and in their way were the titans, Faze Clan. The eventual 1 player in the world needed to put up big numbers versus the titans of the game.

In the next round, Zeus died to GuardiaN with less than 40 seconds to go, but s1mple found olofmeister. GuardiaN traded, but flamie used his pistol to kill him.

NiKo and olofmeister followed up, but the duo of electronic and s1mple somehow killed the remaining FaZe members and electronic defused the bomb NiKo planted.

FaZe struggled, but managed to pull away with the win. GuardiaN took down Zeus and Edward, but electronic and s1mple killed rain and GuardiaN, respectively.

Cloud9 pulled off an upset against the inconsistent G2 Esports and looked to be just the second North American team to reach the finals at a major.

SK Gaming pulled off a hard-fought win against Fnatic and was nearly taken down in the second game of its quarterfinals.

These two teams stood atop of the North American scene and now they battle it out. Game 1 started out with a slaughter from Cloud9 onto SK Gaming, who had about a two-hour break between its marathon match against Fnatic and its semifinals match against Cloud9.

Cloud9 dominated and SK struggled as the Americans took a halftime lead after SK salvaged the fifteenth round.

In the tenth round, SK was up SK ran the clock down late to about 20 seconds and Skadoodle caught out felps. IEM Katowice Major Katowice ESL One: Cologne DreamHack Winter Columbus ESL One: Atlanta PGL Major: GO Invitational CS: Major Boston CS: Major Atlanta Clash for Cash: Road to Vegas Season 1 Season 2.

First Round Seeded Seeding Pool 1: Cologne Seeding Pool 2: Cologne Seeding Pool 3: Remaining team in 3 rd -5 th place and teams in th place from the Offline Qualifier Tie-breakers for seeding between pools from the same placement ranges in order: Winners of the first round "High" Losers of the first round "Low" Each team is drawn an opponent they have not played yet from their group Third Round Division into 3 groups: Teams with a score of 2: HellRaisers 0 - 3 29 - 51 Mirage Cache Mirage.